Since coming down from London two days ago he’d had his correspondence delivered twice daily by couriers. The pile of letters was easily three inches tall. There would be reports from all his businesses, but most of the stack would be about the new pottery he was building in London, his most ambitious project thus far.

Gareth was only half-way through the pile when the sound of somebody clearing their throat made him look up. His butler, Jessup, stood in the doorway.

“I asked not to be disturbed.”

The towering, bone-thin man gave a slight nod, but his expression remained as fixed as a totemic carving. He was, Gareth knew, utterly unflappable. Gareth had poached him from the Duke of Remington’s household, where Jessup’s family had been employed as butlers for two hundred years. Remington could not compete with the pay Gareth offered.

“You have a visitor, Mr. Lockheart, Mrs. Serena Lombard.”

Gareth shook his head. “I am not acquainted with, nor am I expecting any such person.”

“She is here at the behest of Mr. Beech, sir, about the gardens.”

“Ah, I see.” Although he did not. He cleared his throat. “You say Beech has engaged a woman gardener?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Lombard is a woman. And a gardener,” Jessup agreed.

Sometimes—just occasionally—Gareth wondered if his butler made mock of him. He shrugged the thought away. What did he know of gardeners? For all he knew, they might all be females. Well, whoever she was and whatever she did, Gareth would find out at the appropriate time. He cut Jessup an impatient look. “Have Featherstone see to her, Jessup.”

“Mr. Featherstone has gone to the village, sir.”

Gareth stared at the man.

Jessup nodded, just as if he’d spoken. “I shall put her in the sitting room and offer her tea.”

“Yes, very good. Put her in a room with tea.” Lord knew there were enough rooms in the house—seventy-three—certainly one of them would be appropriate for accommodating unexpected female visitors.

Gareth’s eyes and attention drifted back to the neat column of figures in front of him.

“Very good, sir.”

He barely heard the butler, his mind already back on his numbers, the woman forgotten.

***

Serena eyed the generously loaded tea tray with approval and helped herself to three different types of biscuits and the loveliest fairy cake she’d ever seen. Such delicacies were rare these days. Even when she paid a visit to the home of her dead husband’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Remington, the offerings were rather thin; the powerful duke had suffered since the War ended, forced to retrench at his six houses.

Serena examined the huge sitting room—the gaudiest specimen she’d ever sat in—and enjoyed her delicacies. The butler returned after she’d been alone for about a quarter of an hour.

“Do you have everything you need, Mrs. Lombard?” The hesitation before her name was almost imperceptible, but she noticed it all the same.

Serena cocked her head and smiled up at him. “What? Are we no longer friends, Jessup? How are you? I have not been to Keeting yet this year, but I was there at Christmas. His Grace speaks fondly of you, you know.” Keeting Hall was the country seat of the Duke of Remington.